Games And Console TV Ads At Five Year Low

Despite the first month of 2012 seeing some of the highest rates of console and game advertising on television in recent years, since then has experienced its biggest drop off.

Generation Media (via MCVUK) has a table detailing the past few years and the correlation between TV advertising and the first quarter of the calendar. January is traditionally a popular time for ads, most of them coming as part of the post-Christmas sales. February normally has a drop off, though this year has been much more severe.

However, the biggest change comes in March. While the statistics show that in 2008, 2009, and 2011 there was a return to January levels of adverts, in 2012, there's been a 65 per cent drop in traditional numbers. April has seen some pick up, but it's still dropped from the normal levels by 40 per cent.

While it was less extreme, figures like these were seen in 2010 when there was a marked reduction in ad spots. That year still bottomed out in February, though it had a steady incline following shortly after.

Conversely, 2011 had the highest rates of the past few years - only January of this year coming close to topping it.